Another incomplete Dylan song, completed: California Brown Eyed Baby

By Tony Attwood

Bob Dylan Showcase: write the music to a Dylan song

You might recall that a while back we introduced the Bob Dylan Showcase in which readers of Untold Dylan could send in a recording of themselves performing a Dylan song, or a song that related to or was inspired by Dylan’s work in some way.

The collection of recordings we mustered are of course still online and you can reach them via the Untold Dylan Showcase Directory.

Included in this series were a number of songs to which Dylan had written the lyrics, but for which neither he nor anyone else had written any music, and so some of these were completed, allowing the composers to claim, quite reasonably, to have co-written a Dylan song.  All such songs are listed in our alphabetical index of Dylan songs.

As with all nice ideas, gradually its time passed and we moved on but in doing so, two sets of Dylan lyrics were left.

• Bowling alley blues
• California Brown Eyed Baby

and I did say in my last post about this idea, “If you can write the music to either of these songs, please record it and send it to tony@schools.co.uk   If you don’t Tony will have to do it himself, and you don’t want that.”

Well, you were warned, so I’ve composed, and now present, for the first time

“California Brown Eyed Baby”

by Bob Dylan

and Tony Attwood

Here is one version of the lyrics – but there is another with a couple of variations which I have used as they were slightly easier to set…

Anyway it is just meant as a bit of fun.  And if you want to join in you can have a go with Bowling alley blues which I must warn you is fiendish in the extreme.

But equally please do go back to the entries that we had from readers of the site and if you have a recording of yourself or your band or your mates, and it in any way relates to Dylan, please email me the file – send it to Tony@schools.co.uk

Thanks.

Do you have a tale to tell via Untold Dylan?

We now have over 2000 articles on this site, and many of them are personal tales about attending a concert, listening to Dylan, cover versions, or the individual writer’s own appreciation of Dylan and his music.

These articles are written for Untold by Dylan fans, and if you have a view of Dylan that you feel could be of interest to others, we’d love to hear from you.

To see the variety of approaches we have included in this site, just go to the top of the page and look at the various headings under the picture – each one contains an index of articles on a Dylan theme.  Or look at the latest series listed on our home page.  If you write a piece you can add to these, or create your own theme, or simply send in a one-off contribution.   As long as it gives a different insight into Dylan and his work, we may be well interested in publishing it.

Sadly, we don’t have the funds to pay, but Untold Dylan does have a very wide readership, so your work will be seen by a huge number of people.   If you have an article please email Tony@schools.co.uk   If the article is ready, please attach as a word file.

One other thing: we never ask for donations, and we try to survive on the income from our advertisers, so if you enjoy Untold Dylan, and you’ve got an ad blocker, could I beg you to turn it off while here. I’m not asking you to click on ads for the sake of it, but at least allow us to add one more to the number of people who see the full page including the adverts.   Thanks.

And one other, other thing: we also have a very lively discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook with around 8500 active members. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link    And because we don’t do political debates on our Facebook group there is a separate group for debating Bob Dylan’s politics – Icicles Hanging Down